Another temporary art thing appeared at Taylor Square recently.

We caught it mid-construction, but the final results are spectacular. It’s Dale Miles’ work, Underworld.

I love that this terrific beast is arising from the dingy downstairs toilet at Taylor Square. A real underworld.

Just stating facts on Kippax Street, Surry Hills.

The typography’s slightly middle Eastern or Ottoman – “FAME ON ZE WALL” – it looks pretty considered, except for the W.

You can find it right next to a Jumbo & Zap paste up from November.

This jaunty chap was spotted on Wade Place, Surry Hills.

He looks like some kind of top heavy, new breed of future robot. Harvesting energy from his gait, solar panel for a hat, he’s all head and arms. And he’s not alone.

Two red robots and a black one. Some kind of metaphor?

As I was out spotting Mardi Gras carnage this morning, I came across something I had not noticed before.

It’s on Crown Street, at the foot of the “No Stopping” sign outside Urban Uprising, near the corner of Campbell Street.

A cement sculpture of a teddy bear and a mobile phone. They are fixed to the pavement.

Does the bear say “culture?”

Or perhaps “vulture” or “sculpture?”

Intriguing.

We missed the parade last night, but headed out this morning to take a look at the carnage.

Feathers, glow-sticks, flags, head-pieces, goon-bags, discarded shoes, more feathers.

They were all spotted on surrounding streets – Bourke, Crown, Palmer, Burton.

Oxford Street was looking remarkably polished.

More so than those kicking on.

This linocut kid holding a spray can is up on the corner of Jesmond and Crown Streets, next to the Blank Space gallery.

On the other side of Jesmond Street, this sticker covers a Telstra box – a comment on Telstra’s practices, a general comment about telecommunications/electrical infrastructure, or just a random surface to paste something on?

This spaceman is near the corner of Mary Lane and Albion Way, Surry Hills.

Paste ups occupy pretty much the same spot in the hierarchy of street art as tags. Quick to get up on a wall, and often barely sketched out, they rarely rise above their function.

For a while the only creative, really original paste ups we saw were from Jumbo and Zap. They’ve been quiet, so it’s good to see new characters pop up.

We’ve never had a short supply of loaves in the neighbourhood, but we finally have the fishes too!

As I was paying for my F and V at Harris Farm, I noticed a fishy smell.

Not that I was put off by it. On the contrary.

I was, however annoyed that I had already bought some prawns for dinner from somewhere I don’t even want to mention.

Nevermind, seafood could well be a more regular feature on the menu at Chateau Darlinghurst Nights.

These weird geometric objects appeared behind a fence on Taylor Square last night.

I walked by on Friday morning, as council workers tore plants out of their planters and pots, and tossed them into the back of their trucks.

They plant those flowers, take them out, plant them, erect new planters, take them away, without any real connection to what’s going on with the plants – they seem pretty healthy. Still, those planters have been strange from the moment they appeared.

I walked past later, at about midnight, and a fence had been erected around the Taylor Square public toilet. I peeked over the top, and this is what I saw.

I’m pretty sure it’s Dale Miles’s Underworld (the latest in the Taylor Square Plinth project – we blogged about Louisa Dawson’s work in October). He’s shown widely since graduating from the National Art School several years ago – see more here.

He says it’s a response:

to the mysteriousness of the shape of the space enclosed by the entrance fence and the two descending staircases. It is the mystery of the void inverted, the spider exiting its funnel.

The original idea is this. More pictures to come.

This Albion Way back fence has a distinctly Rosalie Gascoigne style: starkly geometric, rustic and quite beautiful.

Patches of rust on the corrugated iron suggest they were rescued from some old roof. But nothing about this fence seems accidental, it’s obviously composed. You know, the back fence isn’t where you expect people to invest their artistic energies, but in Surry Hills you have to use what you’ve got.

It’s Valentine’s Day on the weekend, so it’s no surprise to see people breaking out their best romantic moves in the neighbourhood.

These two are walking home via a bollard on Macdonald Street, Paddington – just over the bridge from Darlinghurst, after it stops being Burton Street.

It’s a paste-up, with Mini Graff’s distinctively clean, pop style, though it’s the first of her cute characters I’ve seen about in a while.